QP: Just the number, please

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Following his first procession as Speaker, and the usual bout of Members’ Statements, things got underway in earnest. Pierre Poilievre led off, worrying that 63 percent of Canadians are suffering from high grocery prices and demanded to know if the prime minister would bring prices down by Monday as promised—erm, which was not the promise. Justin Trudeau said that they tabled a bill to increase competition, but the Conservatives have been obstructing it, so they need to walk the talk. Poilievre repeated his demand, and have a list of specific demanded price reductions. Trudeau repeated that the Conservatives are playing political games by holding up the bill. Poilievre gave a rare third question in French and declared that they can ram through anything they want with their “coalition” with the NDP, and railed about the carbon price, and repeated again a demand to bring food prices down (which was not the promise). Trudeau listed things that the Conservatives have tried blocking with parliamentary tactics, while the Liberals were working to help Canadians. Poilievre switched to English to complain that the prime minister was blaming everyone but himself before repeating his demand for price reductions by Monday. Trudeau said that this was just a political game as the Conservatives were not working with them to move their bill through before Thanksgiving. Poilievre repeated his itemised list of price reduction demands, and Trudeau repeated for a fifth time that the Conservatives have been delaying and obstructing their bill.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and complained that there are 500,000 non-permanent residents in Quebec and claimed that the province couldn’t provide necessary services, and demanded the government reduce their targets. Trudeau said that immigration is a shared responsibility between the federal government with Quebec, and that they are trying to fill labour market needs while they are working to help the provincial government. Therrien insisted that the federal government was being irresponsible and demanded targets be set according to capacity to integrate them. Trudeau disagreed that this was viable, and said that they would work with provinces and municipalities to build more houses to settle more newcomers.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he praised Wab Kinew’s victory in Manitoba, but his question got drowned out by Conservative uproar, until Fergus brought order. When Singh restarted this time he got drowned out by applause before he demanded the government deal with healthcare needs in that province. Trudeau said he was happy to see Manitobans reject the politics of fear and division before saying that he was looking forward to sign health accord with the new government. Singh hammered about the refusal of the former provincial government’s refusal to search the landfill, and demanded a “Red Dress Alert,” Trudeau read that they released new funds to work on next steps with the landfill search and they were moving forward with the Alert.

Round two, and Poilievre got back up to again demanding that the prime minister “remove the food price inflation he caused” by a Monday (Trudeau: There is global inflation and you are obstructing our legislation), he gave a recitation of facile but wrong monetary policy and demanded to know how much the government would be borrowing this year (Trudeau: You only want cuts but here is what we are doing for housing; The bond rating agencies have given us a Aaa rating; You are attacking the facts when they don’t serve your purposes), You are going to borrow $421 billion this year and that is driving up interest rates (Trudeau: Canadians won’t take condescending economic lessons from you because you told them to invest in crypto; He can remain focused on me while we focus on Canadians).

Denis Trudel complained that the government is withholding $900 million in housing funds from Quebec (Trudeau: We are working with the provincial government because we do have a role to play; It’s a shame that the Bloc keeps picking fights where none exist).

Poilievre got up again and he blamed the prime minister for construction starts being down (Trudeau: We have a bill to cut GST on new rental building, but you are obstructing it), a question of how many houses the Accelerator Fund have built so far (Trudeau: Vaughan just passed new rules to help build new homes, which is an example of how the Accelerator is working; We were just at a groundbreaking of a housing project in Vancouver thanks to this fund; Over two million families have homes now because of our housing strategy).

Singh got back up to complain that the federal government has not lived up to promises around renovictions—which was a promise they shouldn’t have made (Trudeau: Some pabulum about the Housing Strategy and the GST cut), and Quebec rental increases (Trudeau: We have worked closely with the government of Quebec for years to invest in housing).

Round three saw Poilievre get back up to demand to know what became of the promise to repurpose federal land for housing (Trudeau: Hooray national housing strategy; We helped house half a million Canadians; You are playing rhetorical games while we are taking action to do what needs to be done), plus energy poverty in Nova Scotia as a segue to their vote on their motion on the carbon price (Trudeau: Our plan to fight climate change is above all a plan for affordability; I spent time in rural Canada this summer and they are worried about droughts, wildfires and floods; You should talk to communities benefiting from the clean economy; Your plan is only to double down on oil and gas), plus questions on the RCMP hiring unilingual anglophones in bilingual positions (Trudeau: We modernised the Act, and we expect the RCMP to respect their obligations), food price increase via “corporate greed” (Trudeau: We called in the CEOs, and if they fail to show results their inaction will have consequences and we are pushing competition reform), interim payment for those with disabilities until the Benefit is in place (Trudeau: There is more to do, but we have been taking action).

Overall, it was generally quieter again today, as MPs remain on good behaviour (more or less), but that did little about the content of the questions. Poilievre spent much of the day trying to be clever in his questions, whether that was in misstating the promise around stabilising food prices, and his “just the number please” questions on the deficit, the Housing Accelerator Fund, and federal buildings repurposed for housing. And how did the prime minister respond to these questions? With his usual round of back-patting and bland pabulum that doesn’t actually approach to answering his questions. At one point, he did hit back about rhetorical games, but these bland non-answers just play into Poilievre’s hands because he knows that’s the kind of response he’s going to get, so he plays into it. There was also a last-ditch effort to get in a few more jabs to the Bloc and Atlantic Liberal MPs about the upcoming vote on their motion about cutting the carbon price, which I will remind you is not clever, but they like to think it is.

And then there as Jagmeet Singh, he decided to try and bask in the reflected glory of Wab Kinew’s victory in Manitoba, and he called this a “bad day for Conservatives” (even though there are no real direct links between the provincial PC and the federal Conservative parties), which of course led to the initial uproar, and when he started over, the Liberals got up that time to applaud, which was just juvenile behaviour all around. Singh took up all of the spots for his party again, as did Poilievre for his, which I will note yet again defeats the whole point of why theses proto-PMQs are supposed to happen. Instead, it’s just more clip-generation in the extreme.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Philip Lawrence for a navy suit over a white shirt and a pink checked tie, and to Dominique Vien for a navy suit over a white collared shirt. Style citations go out to Pam Damoff for a v-necked bright floral dress, and to Martin Shields for a tan brown jacket over a black shirt and black and white patterned tie with grey slacks. Dishonourable mention goes out to Ginette Petitpas Taylor for a mustard jacket over a white shirt and black slacks, and to Pascale St-Onge for a black suit over a pale yellow top.